How To Heap Burning Coals On Your Enemy

I continue to ask, Will our children have faith?

It happens, even among pastors, the spiritual leaders of Christian communities of faith. What happens? Pride and self-aggrandizement. This is why Pastor W insisted that he alone knew what was best for the congregation. They would have a new form of what he called contemporary worship. From his observation and experience this was the only way to reach the youth of the community. His was to be the only way to keep them with the church. The church needed to get past its outmoded fascination with old and outdated liturgical traditions of the past. It must become modern and contemporary with an ever changing world.

So Pastor W threw his weight around. He did not listen to the leaders and elders of his congregation. He did not consult with other pastors in the region. He simply did it! And when twenty families finally walked out in protest—some major, long-time members of the church—Pastor W simply shrugged. That was their choice. He and his followers were moving forward to educate, encourage and train the next generation and to reach out to those outside the congregation's fellowship.

In my previous post I emphasized the importance of living within a community of faith so that our faith in the Risen Christ might be passed on to our children. What I did not say was that within that community there is often conflict, confusion and quarreling about how to do just that. The decades old worship wars within the Christian community give evidence of the same. The Apostle Paul anticipated that in his guidance given to the churches in and around Rome. Though he wrote that "we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another," he also pointed to a long list of failures to bear witness to Christ's love within that body. Here's a brief summary:

• demanding that we adjust our values in order to relate to the world around us
• emphasizing individual rights by insisting that I know what is best! 
• refusing to use the gifts God has given in service of my community of faith
• pretending to care for and love others, with a hidden agenda of gaining personal glory and influence
• outright, obvious and open laziness
• slandering those who slander you
• spreading gossip about any and all who disagree with your personal viewpoint

This list goes on and on. Take another look at what Paul writes in Romans 12:1-21. He knew and wrote about the challenges we all face when living together in community. We carry our sinful natures along with us. His final advice:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head" (Prov. 25:21-22). Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Rom 12:19-21 ESV

Heaping Burning Coals? 

by Lois Tverberg - OurRabbiJesus.com

What's the deal about heaping burning coals on his head? Sure sounds like a cruel, even malicious way of getting even. Why appeal to such desires? How in all the world is this a way of witnessing to our children about the love of Christ the Lord? Dr. Lois Tverberg explains:

The picture of putting coals on a person's head initially sounds like a picture of causing burning pain, but it really is not. Instead, it seems to be a picture of stirring up the coals of a fire to rouse it back to life again. It is a picture of stirring within a person a response of remorse, when they see your kindness in the face of their meanness. This must also be the sense of Paul's passage - we cause our enemies to be remorseful for their actions toward us, and in doing so we overcome evil by doing good.

Another example of why living together in community is critical to the task of passing on the faith to the next generation.